Secondly we want decent surroundings. It is a most unfortunate thing that few temperance reformers have any personal acquaintance with public houses or with alcoholic drinking. For if they had they would know that a man is much more likely to brutalise himself if he is compelled to drink “perpendicularly” in a dirty, ugly, and gloomy bar than if he can sit down comfortably, talk to his friends, play cards and listen, perhaps, to a little music. That is why another phase of the L.C.C. “temperance” policy, the refusal of drink licenses to music halls, is so manifestly absurd. A man who drinks at a music hall, where he is being amused in other ways, is much less likely to get drunk than one who drinks in a public house bar (as such bars are now conducted) where there is nothing to do but to go on drinking. As Mr. Headlam has excellently expressed it, it would be a great deal better policy to turn every public house into a music hall than to turn every music hall into a teetotal institution. The second thing we want then is a humanised public house. Thirdly we want to get rid of the private commercial monopoly which exploits the drink trade, whereby vast fortunes are made at the expense of the community. These immense profits are the direct result of the monopoly granted by the community to private traders in return for a nominal fee. To grant away what is practically public money in this way is monstrous. It is satisfactory to find that something like High License is foreshadowed in this year’s Licensing Act. But High License is not enough. The sensible remedy is the municipalization of the liquour traffic which would fulfil all the above conditions. The municipal public house would refuse to sell any but the best liquors, and it would supply these with humanising instead of demoralising surroundings. The profits which the public are entitled to the public would receive. And let me say here that there is no reason whatever why we should wait for a municipal monopoly--which means waiting till Doomsday. The idea that municipal houses must not compete with privately owned ones rests ultimately upon the mischievous notion already examined that the drinking of alcohol is in itself an evil thing upon which the state ought to frown if it cannot actually suppress it. The typical British workman (whatever “democratic” politicians may say) does not go into the public house in order to get drunk but in order to refresh himself. If the municipality gives him better drink under more pleasant conditions than the publican he will frequent its houses without demanding that drunkenness shall be either encouraged or connived at. And the competition of the municipal house will infallibly raise the standard of those houses that remain in private hands.